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My pedal crank has been clicking slightly for the last few days. It's not much but once I enter Bela...
My pedal crank has been clicking slightly for the last few days. It's not much but once I enter Belarus tomorrow, I think my visas commit me to going all the way to Moscow so I want to make sure the bike is in top condition. A web search showed that this bike shop looked good. It was English-speaking, open until 6 p.m. and said it could do all repairs. The woman said that the mechanic wasn't there because he had said he would only come in today if there was a customer. She asked if it was okay for me to collect the bike any time today and I said that was fine. Four hours later, she phoned to say the mechanic wasn't coming in today so they had dome nothing so yet again, a nbike shop has proved to be utterly utterly useless.

The amazing things is that bike shops never seen to see how useless they are. The woman here was sure she would be able to find somewhere else which could service my bike today. Really? Surely it doesn't take a genius to know that if one shop takes four hours to do nothing, another shop won't be able to do something in the couple of hours of the day which are left. She telephoned another bike shop, explained the problem and they said they could help. Of course, when I went across town to the second shop, they couldn't because there wasn't time. The man in the second shop rode the bike round the car park and said it was fine but it has felt fine today so of course he would. Yesterday, I was of the opinion that I wouldn't carry on beyond Vilnius if I couldn't get the bike serviced. Now I will and when everything goes wrong, it will be entirely these stupid bike shops' fault.

It's the same everywhere in the world: all bike shops, completely utterly useless.


UTC Time: 08:14, Friday 02 September 2011
Local Time: 11:14, Friday 02 September 2011
Estimate of longitude: 25° 17' 32.78" E = 25.292440°
Estimate of latitude: 54° 40' 59.27" N = 54.683130°
Possible error on position estimate: 20 metres